


three's a (snowed in) crowd

by plinth_of_life



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (but not in a quarantine way), Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Parenthood, Snowed In, parent!phan, stuck inside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinth_of_life/pseuds/plinth_of_life
Summary: Dan and Phil struggle to take care of their three-month-old baby as a massive blizzard hits London.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	three's a (snowed in) crowd

**Author's Note:**

> so... it's been a while! finally got the motivation to do some writing and of course, parent!phan was what I needed. I thought it would be interesting to write about what it would be like for them to be stuck with a baby in a lockdown-type situation (but like, not lockdown because... too soon). enjoy! <3

Dan’s eyes were glued to the window, taking in the scene outside. Snow was falling without hesitation, covering every surface in sparkly white fluff. He sighed, knowing it would be a while before going outside was a plausible option.

A quiet babbling sound caused his eyes to flicker down to its source. His daughter, Lily, swaddled snugly in her father’s arms, was looking up at him with a small smile on her face. He grinned back at her and stroked her soft pink cheek, making her smile even more.

“Looks like we’re snowed in, my dear. No walks to the park for us today,” Dan looked at her with an exaggerated pouty expression, his bottom lip jutted out. She let out a little giggle, causing Dan to start smiling again immediately.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be stuck inside with anyone else, darling,” Dan cooed. Lily giggled again, but soon the corners of her mouth began to lower and her eyes began to squint.

“ _Waaaa!_ ” she bawled, her face quickly reddening.

“Oh no, what’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you hungry?”

Dan began to gently bounce her, still cradling the baby close to his chest as he walked out of the lounge and towards the stairs.

“Phil!” he called upwards.

“Yeah?” Phil responded, from somewhere afar.

“When was the last time she had a bottle?”

“Uh…”

“ _Phil!_ This is why we keep a schedule!” Dan chided, “or at least why one of us follows it…” he murmured to the crying baby.

At the top of the stairs, Phil appeared, looking confused and a touch annoyed at his husband.

“I forgot to write it down this time, I’m sorry! If I remember correctly, it was about two hours ago.”

“Ugh, that would make sense, wouldn’t it, Sherlock? Alright, let me fetch a bottle for you, little one.” Dan said, turning from Phil to the baby. “But first, Daddy’s gonna write it down on the schedule! Yes, he is! Yes, he is…” he continued, now in the high pitched baby voice he used to talk to his daughter.

Though he could just about feel Phil rolling his eyes behind him, Dan simply walked over to the kitchen trying to ignore it the best he could.

“Alright, let’s see here… Papa must have fed you around 8 this morning, but who’s to say because I have to write that in for him… and now Daddy’s feeding you at 10:15 and writing it in the chart! Look how easy that was!” Dan said to Lily as he filled in the whiteboard on the fridge. 

“Now let’s get you a bottle…” Dan opened the cupboard where he and Phil kept all the bottle feeding supplies, only to see it empty, aside from the formula itself. Noticing the sink beside him and all the empty, unwashed bottles sitting in it, Dan groaned and pinched the skin between his brows.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, going out of the kitchen and marching up the stairs, crying baby still in his arms.

Dan headed straight for the office, poking his head in and giving Phil a sour look.

“When I told you I was about to feed her, you didn’t think to tell me that there were no clean bottles I could feed her with?”

“Are you sure? I thought there were a couple clean ones left in the cupboard.”

“Well, none that I could see. What I want to know is why there are so many dirty ones from yesterday?”

“I was going to do some washing up this morning but right after I finished feeding her, I got a call from Martyn about the new merch. We ended up talking for an hour then I just… forgot about the bottles.”

Dan gave Phil a half smile and suddenly placed the crying baby right into Phil’s arms.

“Well then, I’ve got a lot of washing up to do, since you forgot. I’ll get her when I can finally get a bottle ready,” Dan said, swiftly turning around with a quiet huff.

“Wait! Dan, have you smelled her? She needs a nappy change.”

“I guess I was too busy worrying about, oh I don’t know, the blizzard outside to notice, sorry,” Dan replied, in a somewhat mockish tone. “You can take care of that while I wash the bottles, yeah?”

Phil nodded silently, with an annoyed expression on his face that he couldn’t fully suppress and, carrying Lily, headed into her nursery as Dan headed back downstairs to the kitchen.

Dan only had time to wash one bottle before he heard Phil call from upstairs.

“Babe, where are the rest of the nappies?”

“Check the hallway closet!” Dan yelled in response.

Only a few moments of scuffling sounds from upstairs passed when Phil cried out again.

“Nothing in the closet! We couldn’t have run out, could we?”

Dan dried off his hands, placed one over his eyes and groaned. He was quick to run upstairs, to find a flustered Phil and a very upset Lily, now unswaddled and flapping around in Phil’s arms, the bottom snaps of her onesie undone.

“I thought you bought more last time you went to the shops, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t buy more because I was sure we had a whole unopened package already! But maybe I was mistaken, Mr. Perfect…”

Quickly, Dan grabbed the baby out of Phil’s hold and furrowed his brows at his husband.

“I can’t deal with this right now. Go out and get some more nappies before this one overflows.”

“Dan, it’s a fucking blizzard outside!”

“I’m sure Boots is still open. You know I don’t want to send you out there but I don’t know what else to do.”

“But you don’t want to go because it’s my fault, hm? Like everything else too?”

Dan narrowed his eyes and, the baby cradled in one arm, pointed a finger with the other towards the stairs.

“Just go, Phil. I think we both need a little alone time right now.”

Phil shook his head with an exasperated sigh, leaned over to plant a kiss on his daughter’s head then stomped down the stairs, his steps loud and booming, making Lily cry even more. And soon, Dan started to cry too. 

It’s not like he wanted to; it always made him feel so weak to have the emotional control of an infant when conversations got a little tense with his husband. Though he and Phil rarely fought, they had begun snipping at each other more and more once they became parents and started balancing fatherhood with full-time stay-at-home careers and even less sleep than they got before a baby came along.

Though neither of them would trade it for the world, the stress their little daughter brought to their life was, on good days, barely manageable, and on bad, downright impossible to deal with healthily.

But, Dan reminded himself, as he often had to do in times like these, it truly was all worth it in the end. Spending day after day changing nappies, bottle feeding, and soothing a sensitive little baby was exhausting, yet both he and Phil knew not to complain. After many years of talking about having hypothetical children, then a few years of planning, two failed cycles of IVF, several tens of thousands of dollars, and a rollercoaster of emotions, they finally had what they always dreamed of. Though needy, Lily was the sweetest baby they could ever ask for. She loved nothing more than cuddling with her dads and she often fell asleep in their arms before they put her in the crib. Her smile could melt away any stress that either of her dads were feeling, at least for a moment, and her laugh never failed to make them grin.

Still, she was a handful, especially when she got upset. Her crying hadn’t ceased by the time Phil left so Dan finally took her downstairs and back to the kitchen. He took Lily’s bouncer seat over from the lounge and set her in it.

“There you go, darling. Daddy will get you a bottle in just a moment.”

He didn’t bother with washing out any more bottles for the time being, using the one he just cleaned instead. He unscrewed the top and added a few scoops of formula from the canister in the cupboard.

“I do hope your papa is safe out there… at least he’s not driving, I wouldn’t even trust him to make it to the store in perfect weather,” he chuckled, muttering to the baby as he filled the kettle and placed it on the stove.

“Hopefully the tube’s not too crowded, he’s probably anxious as is… should I give Papa a call, hm?” he asked Lily as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

He tapped on Phil’s contact and held the phone up to his ear, waiting to make sure his husband was alright.

_Rrrring. Rrrring. Rrrring._

Then silence. Dan hung up before Phil’s voicemail came on and sunk to the floor with his head in his hands. He wiped off the stray tears rolling down his face and sent a quick text to his husband before returning to making the bottle.

_did u get to the store ok?? pls call me. i love you_

Once the text had sent, Dan realized the kettle had been screaming for the last minute, making Lily’s cries even worse.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Daddy’s almost got your bottle done, okay?” he muttered.

Dan turned the stove off and let the water cool down, trying to resist checking his phone in the meantime. Once enough time had past for the water to cool and Dan couldn’t handle idly waiting for a text any longer, he took the kettle off the stove. Dan poured the water over the powder, screwed the cap on tight, and shook it a few times to mix the formula.

“Bottle’s almost ready, little one,” he told his daughter as he placed a drop of milk on his wrist to check the temperature.

“Okay, are you ready for some nice warm milk, Lily?” he asked the bawling baby. Dan was quick to scoop her up out of the bouncer seat and hold her to his chest. The physical touch calmed her down a little, though she still whimpered for the bottle in her father’s other hand.

“It’s alright, sweetheart, your bottle’s right here,” Dan whispered, lowering himself onto the couch in the lounge and adjusting the baby in his hold. Once he put the nipple of the bottle to Lily’s lips, she began to suckle and her cries finally quieted.

“That’s a good girl,” Dan soothed, smiling at the now calm baby he was cradling. In that moment, he finally felt like the chaos of the day was over and everything would be okay… everything except for the fact that his husband was out in search of nappies in the middle of a snowstorm, that is.

“I really hope your papa’s alright. Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at him, that wasn’t very nice of Daddy, was it?”

Lily looked up at Dan, her big blue eyes wide as she continued drinking from her bottle.

“I know, Daddy can be a meanie sometimes. Your papa’s much nicer than me. I have a feeling you have all his niceness inside you too, little one,” Dan smiled, looking into his daughter’s blue eyes, eyes of a shade so uncannily familiar. Dan loved all that she shared with Phil but her eyes were his absolute favourite. He couldn’t wait to see how else she’d grow to resemble him as she got older.

“You really are just like your papa. I don’t think I’ve met anyone sweeter than the two of you,” Dan said with a smile.

He watched his daughter finish her bottle in silence, with only the soft sounds of her breathing and swallowing filling the quiet house.

Once she was done, Dan gently lifted the baby to his shoulder to burp her. He only needed to pat her on the back a few times for her to burp, but soon after he felt a warm, damp spot spread on the back of his shirt and seconds later, Lily began to cry again.

“Oh no, you spat up on Daddy… That’s just what I needed today, hm?” Dan tried not to let the annoyance seep through his voice too much, lest Lily get even more upset, but little mishaps were becoming hard to take in an already unlucky day.

“Don’t cry, sweetie, you’ve done enough crying already and Daddy needs a break…” Dan muttered, tension threaded through his hushed voice.

He stood up, Lily screaming in his arms, and walked over to the kitchen, picking up his phone from the counter and checking his messages.

Nothing.

“God _damn_ it!” he grumbled, louder than he intended. Lily’s screams were reaching a higher pitch and she was beginning to kick at Dan’s chest.

“Shit…” he mumbled. “Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh, it’s alright, darling. I know your nappy is wet, I know… Just can you please be quiet until Papa gets home? I can’t change you until then anyway so there really is no use in crying…” Dan said softly, desperation growing in his voice.

Tears were beginning to form in his eyes too and it wasn’t long before he was crying too, deeper and softer than Lily’s cries but just as full of discomfort and frustration.

He sat down on the couch and held her close to him, just about crying into his little daughter’s shoulder as she cried into his. It felt like an eternity, crumbling into the cushions of the sofa, breaking into a million distraught little pieces all over the floor of the lounge.

… 

After what felt like hours of collective sobbing, all of a sudden, Dan felt Lily leave his hold. Slowly opening his eyes, he stumbled up from the couch, frantically turning his head in every direction looking for his daughter.

“ _Dan!_ Dan! It’s alright, I got her.”

The voice, coming from straight ahead, caused Dan to finally see all that was around him. Phil, with a rumpled quiff, snowflakes hanging off the loose strands, was in front of him, with a smirk on his face, looking at his husband through smudged and foggy glasses. He was holding Lily, still screaming and squirming, her onesie still half undone and a dark, wet spot over much of the bottom half of it.

“You’ve got spit up on your shirt, you know that?” Phil said with a dry laugh.

Dan grabbed the fabric at his right shoulder and pulled it toward him. He grimaced at the pukey green smear now dry on the white cotton material.

“It’s been… quite the day,” Dan murmured, still staring at the patch on his shirt.

“Love, it’s noon.”

“God, it feels like midnight… Can you please change her with those fresh nappies you got? My ears are starting to ring and I’m afraid she’s going to lose her voice with all this screaming.”

“As long as you change your shirt in the meantime. You two are a stink bomb right now. Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” Phil began telling the baby, “Papa’s gonna change your nappy and put you in a nice clean little onesie and then it’ll be naptime for Lily!”

Phil began heading towards the stairs, his baby voice echoing down the foyer. 

“Oh, yes! Yes, indeed! Daddy and Papa need some peace and quiet! Yes, they do! Yes, they do!”

Dan let out a quiet laugh and went to the bedroom, changing out of his white long sleeve and into a striped jumper.

On the way back downstairs, he stopped at the doorway of the nursery and poked his head in through the door left ajar.

Phil had his back to him, hunched over the changing table at the opposite side of the room.

“Oh, you poor thing… Here, Papa picked up some ointment just in case you needed it. I know, it hurts, I’m sorry, darling…”

Dan crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, smiling as he observed the gentle way Phil treated their daughter, delicately caring for her unfortunate diaper rash and soothing her pained cries.

Phil took off her disheveled onesie and replaced it with a fresh one.

“Are you ready for a nap, my little Lily-bug?” he asked the baby, who was now dressed in a red onesie covered in black polka dots. 

He lifted her up from the changing table and held her against his chest. Turning around, he made eye contact with Dan and both men jumped a little in surprise.

“I’ll be downstairs in a bit,” Phil said in a hushed tone, looking at Dan with a smirk.

“You sure you don’t need any help?” Dan asked, raising an eyebrow at the squirming baby, still whimpering in Phil’s arms.

“Dan...”

“I can go replace the batteries in the white noise machine or—”

“ _Dan!_ ” Phil said sternly, still in a hushed tone as he bounced his daughter and rubbed her back. “I got it. I do know how to get her down, believe it or not. Just go… Please?”

Dan’s face fell. He shook his head and turned around, slowly pacing towards the stairs.

“Arsehole…” he muttered, just loud enough so he’d know Phil could hear.

…

Dan was lying on the couch, listening to the pop music that was playing a bit too loudly from the speakers in the lounge.

He had almost fallen asleep when the music suddenly stopped and, upon opening his eyes, Dan saw Phil standing at the other end of the room, sound system remote clenched tightly in his right hand.

He huffed and turned around toward the kitchen, standing stoically with his back to his husband. After a beat of silence, Dan sat up and rose from the couch.

“Why didn’t you answer me when I called and texted you?” he asked, approaching his husband.

“My phone died on the tube,” Phil mumbled, taking a few steps away from Dan.

“See, this is why I make sure we keep everything plugged in—”

“ _GODDAMNIT, Dan!”_ Phil shouted, turning around and throwing the stereo remote at the armchair next to him.

Dan opened his mouth to speak but soon shut it and pursed his lips. Another beat of silence passed between them before Phil spoke again.

“I know I’m not good at keeping up with the feeding schedule or the shopping list or the fucking tummy time tracker. I know I didn’t read all the books that you did when she was on the way. I know since we first moved in together I’ve never been able to keep things plugged in or make sure my socks don’t end up all over the house or properly keep anything tidy. But I don’t think I’m a shitty father and if I am, maybe you shouldn’t have made a baby with me and my shitty dad sperm.”

Phil began to tear up and wiped at his face with a shaking hand. Dan was on the verge of tears himself and, like he always did when Phil got angry, opened up his arms and let his crying husband into them.

“I’m so, so sorry…” Dan whispered into Phil’s hair, planting a gentle kiss on his husband’s head. “You’re not, and never will be, a shitty dad, and believe me, I know one when I see one,” Dan chuckled darkly.

He moved a hand up and down Phil’s back, gently soothing his distraught husband.

Phil pulled away from the embrace and looked at Dan with wet eyes.

“If I’m not a bad dad, then how come I do everything wrong?” he asked, swallowing and shifting his glance toward the floor.

Dan sighed and took Phil’s hand, lightly squeezing it.

“Today was just a bad day for me, and I’m sorry I took all that out on you… Seriously, I hate myself for making you feel like a bad dad because… well… you’re not. You’re actually a fantastic dad, far better than I could ever be.”

“How could that be the case when you’re always so organized and shit? And it was my fault she had to wear a wet diaper for far too long today?”

“Hey, that was my fault, I didn’t even think to put nappies on the shopping list. And I’m only ‘organized’,” Dan said, using his fingers as air quotes, “because I would literally have a mental breakdown if I wasn’t. Like you’ve always been able to handle baby stress way better than me.”

“You and her do tend to freak out in sync with one another…” Phil muttered with a smirk, looking back up at Dan.

“That’s true…” Dan laughed, “But like, remember when we first brought her home? And there was that night where she would _not_ stop crying? I tried soothing her for like an hour and nothing worked, until you woke up and realized she just needed to burp?” 

Phil grinned at Dan and both men began to giggle.

“And the time when you kept changing her dry nappies every half hour because you were convinced she was making, like, invisible poo, and you didn’t realize she was gassy?” Phil said, barely keeping himself together at this point, laughing with his tongue between his teeth.

“Then you gave her a tummy rub and she farted all over you? And you had to take a shower at like three in the morning just to get the stink off?”

Phil nodded, tears, now from laughing, forming in his eyes.

“I’ll try being less harsh on you, yeah? ‘Cause like I don’t know what I’d do without you. Lily would be causing me to get even less sleep than I already do and I’d go through way too many nappies trying to get rid of the invisible poo,” Dan said with a snort.

“Yeah, unless you want to be a sleep-deprived zombie, I guess you’re stuck with me, darling,” Phil replied, leaning in and giving Dan a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way… ”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments, kudos, and reblogs are always appreciated.
> 
> Check me out on tumblr [@plinth-of-life](https://plinth-of-life.tumblr.com) <3


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